When's the last time you settled down with a good book, just because you enjoyed it? A new survey shows reading as a pastime is becoming dramatically less popular in the US, which correlates with an increased consumption of other digital media, like social media and streaming services.
From what I’ve read in /r/teachers, many kids refuse to read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs.
I recently saw a post about some grown-ass adult shocked that his GF recommended a “chapter book”, as he put it.
I watched a podcast recently wherein some actor talked about writing a book-- “… I wrote one-hundred and twenty thousand words, which is like twice what any sane person writes for a book.” I write as a hobby, and have written a handful of books of around 150,000 words, just for fun.
I’m not surprised so few people read for fun anymore–texting makes up most people’s reading these days, as far as I can tell. No one cares to concentrate on one thing for more than the length of a TikTok video.
I believe social media and short-form videos have completely tanked the average person’s attention span, and I’m certainly included in that demographic. I’ve read more this year than the past 5 years (probably), but goddamn is it difficult to stay focused on reading.
I personally don’t think attention spans have gotten worse. The problem is that tech has figured out how to grab your attention and toss it around so well that it feels like an addiction. We’ve come a long way from neon sign advertisement to whatever hell social media is now.
I suppose it could be a little bit of both.
I haven’t thought of the phrase “chapter book” since I had kids in early elementary school.
Basically, the US education system got fixated in a non-scientific strategy for teaching reading. Which has resulted in a significant drop in literacy skills and a subsequent dislike for reading as a pastime. Three cueing doesn’t work and it actually hurts reading skills. It’s like figuring how to teach walking by observing people with muscular distrophy. Sure, they have lots of tricks to help them stay mobile, but it is not how most people walk. They fumbled the research and created a millionaire industry of teaching material that the school districts got fixated on under a false promise, to help read the worst performers. Teaching these tricks to healthier children leaves them depending on subpar crutches and they never develop the actual skills. As a result, the average performers were hurt into bad performance and the good performers were harmed. Now we know that there’s no trick. Just like rehabilitation, the only way to teach reading is by pushing through it. Phonics is tedious training and without a good support structure it is frustrating for the worst performers, but it is the only way to get them to read better. Just like rehabilitation clinics are more about creating an environment where the required exercise and walking training can be pushed through with minimum tedium and frustration in an emotionally healthy way.
Until you can read a page at least effortlessly, then reading for pleasure and strong literacy cannot be developed. Toss in mind numbing social media rewarding instant gratification and you have a recipe for disaster.
I learned recently that certain genres do have word limits in publishing. Like if it is over a certain length it goes straight in the garbage because it depends on how the publisher deals with that market.
Totally bizarre but maybe that’s what the celebrity was also alluding too with the sane people comment? Or not, I dunno.